1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless communication and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for configuring a control channel and a data channel in a wireless communication system.
2. Related Art
One of the most important requirements of the next-generation wireless communication system is to be able to support a high data transfer rate. To this end, various techniques, such as Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO), Cooperative Multiple Point (CoMP) transmission, and a relay, are being researched, but the most basic and stable solution is to increase the bandwidth.
However, frequency resources are now in the saturation state, and various techniques are partially being used in a wide range of frequency bands. For this reason, as a scheme for securing a wide bandwidth in order to satisfy the requirements of a higher data transfer rate, a Carrier Aggregation (CA) that is a concept in which each of scattered bands is designed to satisfy the basic requirements in which each band can operate as an independent system and a number of bands are aggregated into one system is being introduced. Here, a band or carrier capable of independently operating is defined as a Component Carrier (CC).
In a recent communication standard, for example, in a standard, such as 3GPP LTE-A or 802.16m, the continuous extension of the band up to a 20 MHz or more is being taken into consideration. In this case, a broadband is supported by aggregating one or more CCs. For example, if one CC corresponds to a bandwidth of 5 MHz, a bandwidth of a maximum of 20 MHz is supported by aggregating 4 carriers. A system that supports a CA as described above is called a carrier aggregation system.
Meanwhile, in a wireless communication system, a system in which one base station supports terminals more than terminals supported by an existing system is taken into consideration. For example, one base station may support more terminals due to the application of techniques, such as Machine Type Communication (MTC) and enhanced multi-user Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO).
In such a case, it may be difficult to send control information to a plurality of terminals using only a conventional control channel or radio resource region in which control information is transmitted. In order to solve such a problem, the assignment of a new control channel to a data channel or a radio resource region in which data is transmitted in a conventional system is being taken into consideration.
If a new control channel is assigned in a wireless communication system capable of supporting a CA, how a terminal will be informed of the position where the new control channel has been assigned using what method is problematic. Furthermore, if a new control channel is included in an existing data channel, how the position of the data channel will be configured using what method is problematic.